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Apple has released a big update to its companion app for the 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference, scheduled to begin next Monday. WWDC 6.0 features a number of significant improvements, including the ability to use almost all of the features in the app without signing in with an Apple ID. The app now provides curated video playlists based on featured themes, a new “Venue” tab that provides information on the venue, and interactive venue and street maps for the local area. The update also adds an iMessage app that provides some exclusive stickers for WWDC attendees to share.

AgileBits has announced a new “Travel Mode” feature for 1Password that will help to keep confidential data such as passwords, credit cards, and secure notes, safe from unwarranted searches when travelling. The new feature, which is free to all 1Password subscribers, allows users to automatically and completely remove password vaults from their devices with a single click before travelling, and then just as easily restoring them later. Travel Mode is engaged from the 1Password.com web site rather than an option within any of the 1Password apps, so vaults cannot be restored from the apps themselves. By default, all vaults are removed when Travel Mode is engaged, however individual vaults can be flagged as “Safe for Travel” which will leave them on the device, so users can maintain a vault of only those items that they need when travelling, while ensuring all other data remains securely locked away on 1Password.com and not on the local device. In addition, administrators of 1Password for Teams accounts can specify which vaults are safe for travel as well as administratively turning travel mode on or off for individual users.

At Google’s annual Google I/O conference, the company announced several Google product enhancements coming to its iOS offerings, including the release of The Google Assistant, improvements coming to Google Photos, and a new Smart Reply feature for Gmail on iOS.

As rumoured earlier this week, Google took the wraps off The Google Assistant today, announcing its availability on any iPhone running iOS 9.1 or later. Google also announced several general enhancements to the service that will also be available on iOS, including the ability to schedule new calendar appointments and create reminders using Google Home, making hands-free calls to mobile and landline phones in Canada and the U.S. for free, and access music, movies, and TV shows from Spotify, Soundcloud, Deezer, HBO NOW, CBS All Access, and HGTV. Assistant is also coming to Chromecast later this year, providing visual responses on users’ TV screens. Google also announced plans to add a new feature, dubbed Google Lens, to Assistant to allow users to take action based on data from their iPhone camera, such as reading a marquee to pull up relevant concert information. Google Assistant remains available only in the U.S. for now, however Google also announced that it plans to roll the service out to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan later this year.

Siri is about to have some more competition, with Google Assistant set to release on iOS “soon,” according to Android Police. A source said the announcement could come as soon as this week’s Google I/O conference. The report is short on details, but speculates that the app could feature a blend of the voice-activated version on Android devices and the chat-style functionality see in Google’s Allo messaging app. The app is expected to only be available in the US at launch. [via 9to5Mac]

Nintendo will be adding a Legend of Zelda game to its growing list of iOS titles, The Wall Street Journal reports. Sources said the game is set to be released after the iOS Animal Crossing title debuts later this year, but warned that Nintendo could always change the timing and order of its releases. The Animal Crossing game has already been delayed once. No information on pricing was mentioned, and the company has dabbled in different pricing models, with Super Mario Run costing $10 but other games only charging for in-app purchases. Sources also said The Pokémon Company is planning a new card-game app after the runaway success of Pokémon Go, but neither Nintendo nor The Pokémon Company commented on the story.

Twitter and the National Football League have announced a new partnership that would have the social media service streaming “uniquely packaged” official NFL content worldwide and on a daily basis throughout the year. Twitter released an Apple TV app last fall, on the heels of a deal with the NFL to stream Thursday Night Football games, and with this new partnership, the NFL and Twitter will now be cooperating to expand NFL content to include video clips that provide game highlights, breaking news, analysis, and “Throwback Thursday” along with a 30-minute live digital show that will air five days per week during the NFL season to cover breaking news, game highlights, and more, as well as live pre-game coverage during the season. [via iPhone in Canada]

Apple has added authorized service providers to its iOS Support app, allowing users to schedule repairs at those locations in the same way they would at a Genius Bar. The move brings the app in line with Apple’s support site — which made a similar change at the end of last year — and allows service locations to be sorted by distance, carrier and appointment availability. The update also added support for iOS 10 rich notifications when chatting with technical support.

Apple has acquired the Beddit Sleep Monitor system, according to an update to the company’s privacy policy. Beddit’s system includes an app that syncs up with a ribbon-shaped sensor placed between a user’s mattress and sheet to monitor everything from heart rate and breathing to room temperature and snoring. The app then provides tips on how to improve the user’s sleep based on the collected data, and Beddit’s site now touts the ability to link its own app to the iPhone’s Health app through HealthKit. The move further underscores Apple’s ambitious push into health monitoring technology, hinted at last year by CEO Tim Cook when he admitted that the Apple Watch might not be the only device needed to meet his ultimate vision. “The holy grail of the watch is being able to monitor more and more of what’s going on in your body,” Cook said at Startup Fest Europe. “If you could have a device that knew so much about you, it would be incredible, and would extend life and extend quality. I’m not saying one device will do all of that.”

Apple’s latest version of the Workflow automation app has added back in support for Google Chrome and Pocket along with brand new actions using Apple Music. The app — which allows users to tie together functions from various apps to perform automated processes — now features actions for “Add Music to Up Next” and “Clear Up Next” to quickly reset or add music to Apple Music’s playlist. While Apple has added support for some Google software back in, Workflow still limits map-related actions to Apple Maps instead of the popular Google Maps app, and other actions using Uber, Telegram, and LINE are also still unavailable. [via MacRumors]

Apple has issued a clarification to the company’s new policy for commissions paid to affiliates linking to apps, explaining that “commissions for all iOS in-app purchases will be reduced from 7 percent to 2.5 percent globally.” Last month Apple told affiliate members they would see the reduction on “all app and in-app content,” but the new statement limits the cut to in-app purchases only. The iTunes Affiliate program allows online outlets to claim the commissions if readers click on an embedded link and actually follow through with a purchase. For the time being Apple says “all other content types (including music, movies, books, paid iOS apps and TV) will remain at the current 7 percent.”

Apple and Amazon are close to an agreement which would bring Amazon’s Prime Video app to the Apple TV, according to a new report from Recode. According to people familiar with the two companies, Amazon employees are expecting that the tvOS app could arrive in the third quarter of the year, allowing Amazon Prime Video subscribers to stream TV shows and movies to Apple’s set-top box. Currently, Amazon does provide an iOS app that will allow users to stream to the Apple TV using AirPlay, but it lacks the elegance and simplicity of a native tvOS app. It’s unclear what has prompted this sudden change of heart for Amazon, which has snubbed the Apple TV for almost two years now, beginning with banning sales of the Apple TV and other products competing with its own Fire TV hardware back in Oct. 2015. While many hoped for an Amazon Prime Video app when the new app-enabled fourth-generation Apple TV arrived around the same time, Amazon remained the one major holdout — a decision that, according to Apple, was entirely up to Amazon.

The iOS app for Hulu’s live TV service has appeared on the App Store with little fanfare. The apps will allow subscribers to the service to stream more than 50 live and on-demand channels, including Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, ESPN, History Channel and TNT. Live TV can also be recorded via a cloud-based DVR for viewing any time, and concurrent streams can be viewed on multiple devices. The service offers up to six personalized profiles so that users within a household can curate their own show, network and movie picks, and the system makes its own recommendations as it learns what users like to watch. The app itself is free to download, but access to the service requires a $40 a month subscription after a one-week free trial (or $44 a month to get rid of commercials). While Hulu’s official guide lists the service as being available on Apple TV as well, there’s currently no tvOS app available.

Several major companies whose iOS apps once offered Apple Watch support have quietly dumped support for watchOS in recent updates, AppleInsider discovered. The most recent updates for apps from Amazon, Target, eBay and Google Maps have all seen them lose support for watchOS where they previously included it. While Google said about Google Maps, “We removed Apple Watch support from our latest iOS release but expect to support it again in the future,” others have stayed mum on the move. While it’s possible some of the apps will be reintroduced, it’s also possible (given the lack of outcry) that the companies saw little use in updating the watchOS functionality if it wasn’t being used.

After an announcement last week that App Store prices in Europe would be going up, developers have spotted new pricing alternatives as low as € 0.49, iPhoneItalia reports. Tier 1 pricing was increased from € 0.99 to € 01.09, but after scrolling all the way to the bottom of the list developers discovered alternate pricing levels that would allow them to keep prices the same as before. While the changes automatically increased the prices of all apps at Tier 1 (and upped the cost of in-app purchases and subscriptions as well), some continue to be available at the previous rates or even for less, suggesting some developers have manually changed their prices back. [via 9to5Mac]

Two new free games available in the Tynker app are aiming to get K-5 students learning Apple’s Swift programming language. Apple has incorporated the games — Space Cadet and Dragon Spells — into its Get Started with Code 1 and Get Started with Code 2 teacher guides, both of which are available for free on iBooks. Space Cadets is aimed at 5-7 year-olds, while Dragon spells is for kids 8-11. “In Space Cadet, students in kindergarten through second grade solve puzzles and complete programming challenges set in space,” the press release states. “In Dragon Spells, third through fifth grade students learn programming fundamentals as they train their dragon and collect treasures. In both courses, students learn through creative play as they solve puzzles, build projects, and animate characters.” The games prime kids for using Apple’s Swift Playgrounds app, designed for kids in sixth grade and up.

Apple and Musical.ly have partnered to supply content from Apple Music for the popular music video app, Recode reports. Musical.ly is a service that lets users create their own music videos from snippets of songs, and beginning today, Apple Music will now be supplying many of the songs, expanding on Musical.ly’s current catalog from music distributor 7digital. The partnership will presumably increase the amount of content available to Musical.ly users while also providing a new way for Apple to promote the Apple Music service to Musical.ly users — those who are Apple Music subscribers will gain the benefit of being able to listen to full songs within the Musical.ly app.

At its F8 conference, Facebook revealed it is working on integrating Apple Music into the company’s Messenger app “very soon,” The Next Web reports. The feature is part of Messenger’s new Chat Extensions platform tool that will let users perform functions they’d usually need to leave Messenger to complete. Messenger will soon include an app list, and once Apple Music is selected users will be able to search for an artist or song title and share the resulting link through Messenger without exiting the app. Music can also be played from within Messenger, but there’s no word on whether users will be able to sync up their playback for a simultaneous listening experience.

Chinese officials in charge of regulating the internet have met with Apple representatives to discuss live streaming apps available in the App Store, Reuters reports. China’s official Xinhua News Agency said the Beijing Cyberspace Administration is urging Apple to “tighten its checks” on apps that make it possible to live stream video. The government recently ordered three live-streaming websites in the country to “rectify management loopholes,” but the restrictions that were put in place aren’t entirely clear. The country’s live-streaming market has become lucrative, producing $4.36 billion in revenue last year despite crackdowns on sites that provide illegal content. Earlier this year Apple pulled The New York Times’ apps from China’s App Store at the government’s request, but there’s no word yet on which live-streaming apps are at issue and whether there will be restrictions or outright bans placed on them.

Apple has made GarageBand, iMovie, Numbers, Pages and Keynote free to all Mac and iOS users on the App Store. All of the programs have been free since 2013 with a new Mac or iOS device purchase (and by extension to any other device owned by the user since all purchases are shared between multiple devices courtesy of the App Store), but now the company has made them free to anyone. With the exception of iMovie, the latest versions of all the apps require iOS 10 or later, and since the iPhone 5 is the only device capable of running iOS 10 that came out before the apps went free, most users with devices capable of running the newest versions will already have received them for free with new device purchases. But for those with devices that couldn’t make the leap to iOS 10, we tested the downloads on a fifth-generation iPod Touch running iOS 9.3 and found that Apple still offers the older versions of the apps for devices that are unable to run the most recent version, so users with older devices will still be able to take advantage of the change.

Developer Andrew Chang has announced on Reddit that he will be partnering with Spotify to help develop and official Apple Watch app for the popular streaming service. Chang originally announced development of a third-party Apple Watch app for Spotify back in February, with a hand-on video walk through posted by 9to5Mac, with plans to include advanced features such as offline playback, allowing music to be stored on and played from the Apple Watch without an iPhone in range. Chang initially ran into some opposition from Spotify’s legal team in relation to his choice of name, forcing him to rebrand his app as “Snowy,” however Chang updated his Reddit post yesterday to announce that he’s now going to be “working closely with Spotify to bring Snowy to the Apple Watch as part of an official Spotify iOS app.” Chang notes that he was able to build the app independently thanks to Spotify’s iOS SDK, but that with “the expertise and tools available at Spotify” he expects that he’ll be able to “take things to the next level.” While Chang did not provide any estimate on when the official Spotify Apple Watch companion app will be available, he states that it’s definitely “in the pipeline.” [via iPhone in Canada]